


Oathkeeper

by tria_star



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:53:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tria_star/pseuds/tria_star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Ned Stark and his six approach the Tower of Joy, Ser Arthur Dayne looks in on Lyanna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oathkeeper

_And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it in both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light._

_"No," Ned Stark said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends."_

*     *     *

His sworn brothers waited for him below, but Ser Arthur Dayne, Sword of the Morning and knight of the Kingsguard, had one small errand to perform before he descended the tower. He had to see for himself the life he had sworn to protect.  

Early sunlight was warming the bedchamber as he entered. He saw Lyanna Stark gazing out the window, as she had often used to do, before the news came of the Trident and all of the life had left her eyes. One arm was resting on the ledge to hold herself upright; in the other, she cradled a small bundle wrapped in furs.   

"You should be in bed, Lady Stark," Arthur said softly. 

Her nightgown, stiff with dried blood, barely moved as she turned. The babe was asleep, Arthur saw, as he looked for the first time on the newly born son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.  _The last living child of the greatest man who ever lived_.  _  
_

"It’s been over a year since I last saw my brother Ned, but even at a distance I knew him by the way he rides," Lyanna said, managing a weak smile. Then she noticed the armor Arthur had put on, and the helm he carried under his arm. Her gaze came to rest on the hilt of the greatsword jutting out over his left shoulder, and her expression changed at once. 

"You mean to fight him," she said, coldly. 

_I mean to kill him_. "Yes," he answered.   

"Don’t," she said. The fever made her eyes dazzlingly bright. “Don’t," she repeated. She looked as if she would faint with the effort of staying on her feet. “Let me go home with him. The war is over. Rhaegar is dead. There is nothing left for me here."  

"Rhaegar entrusted me with this child’s life," he reminded her.  _The child he did not live to see born._  Arthur’s jaw tightened as he thought of the prince’s other children, murdered during the sack of King’s Landing.  _They say l_ _ittle Rhaenys tried to hide under her father’s bed, but they dragged her out all the same, and The Mountain That Rides ripped baby Aegon from his mother’s breast. They laid the bodies in front of the Iron Throne wrapped in red Lannister cloaks to mask the_   _blood_. _I was not there. I could not save them, my prince!_

Arthur clenched his mailed hands into fists. “I will never allow him to fall into the Usurper’s hands," he swore to her, swore to Rhaegar, swore to himself. 

Lyanna glared at him. “Nor will Ned hand my son over to be butchered by the likes of Gregor Clegane," she said, fiercely. Though she shivered so violently with fever that her teeth chattered, Arthur half-believed she would take on The Mountain herself if given a chance and a sword.  _A she-wolf will tear out the throat of anything that threatens her pups._  

He shook his head. “If Robert learned that your brother let a Targaryen child live, even Rhaegar’s bastard son, he’d have him executed for treason," he said, and she paled at the thought. Ned Stark was already a traitor in Arthur’s eyes, but it would do no good to tell her that now. 

"When you’re well enough to travel," he continued, “I mean to take you across the Narrow Sea. You can be a mother to your son there, out of Robert’s reach." He knew it was a lie, but it was a harmless one. Childbed fever, the maester had called it. The girl would be dead by the next sunrise.  

Tears began to glisten on her face, startling him. "Please," she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “don’t kill my brother. If you ever loved Rhaegar, let me go home." 

He turned abruptly, unnerved by her tears. "I did, my lady."  _Longer than you ever did_. But the guilt rose like bile in his throat as he swept down the stairs, Lyanna Stark’s quiet sobs at his back. 


End file.
